


for a time

by scriptgrim



Category: The Social Network (2010)
Genre: Hazing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-11
Updated: 2014-05-11
Packaged: 2018-01-24 07:27:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1596569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scriptgrim/pseuds/scriptgrim
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eduardo goes through some hazing rituals that go sideways.  Mark is not unaffected by this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	for a time

**Author's Note:**

> Once upon a time, I was in a kink meme and a friend prompted me to write a hazing hurt/comfort fic. I started and never finished, deleted the account and a lot of things got lost on a old hard drive. 
> 
> Based off real events. Hazing is terrible and bad and DON'T DO IT.

It’s sometime past three am when Mark’s phone rings. He considers just not answering it because he went to bed probably ten minutes ago, and Wardo gets weirdly specific when asking about just how many hours of sleep he got last night. However, his phone rarely rings, so Mark picks it up and mutters a sleepy hello.

The response he gets is anything but sleepy.

“Hello?” a frantic voice says into the speaker, and Mark perks up, because that isn’t Wardo. “Hello? Who is this?”

Mark checks the number on the display, and sits up. “Mark. Why do you have Eduardo’s phone?”

“This is Anthony,” the voice returns. “I’m sorry man, but you were the first person on his speed dial, and oh _shit_ , he couldn’t move his legs.”

With that, Mark’s completely awake. “What are you talking about?” he bites, while standing up and slipping on his flip flops. He needs to know where to go, where to get Chris to drive him to (because Chris is the only one with a car), because this guy, and Mark can’t even remember his name, said something about _couldn’t move his legs_.

“We’re at Mass General,” the guys says shortly before quietly cursing and chanting, oh _God_. 

And all Mark wants to do is yell, _tell me what happened_ , but he knows Eduardo went to a hazing deal last night and that means no one is going to admit to what really happened, and that this has to be really bad if the hospital was brought into it. So he hangs up and shakes Chris awake, explains in two terse sentences what has happened, and immediately, Chris gets up, pulls Dustin from his computer, and they leave in less than five minutes.

Mark runs through internet protocols in his head, because it’s calming and means really nothing, and Eduardo could be paralyzed, and thoughts of that dance through Mark’s head if he isn’t careful to run through lines of code, protocols and a billion other things that are not Wardo or have anything to do with Wardo.

(That doesn’t mean he isn’t going through a list of things that could be wrong with Wardo in the back of his head. What accommodations they are going to have to make, how much Wardo will hate it, and the fact that Mark won’t care about any of it if Eduardo is still alive.)

Traffic is nonexistent at 4:30 in the morning, and Mark pushes his way past nurses and everything until he finds a crowd in the middle of the waiting area. They look up at him when he enters, all white and worried.

“What happened?” he asks.

A man with a grin too wide and a suit jacket on says, “It was a football game, and he just fell.”

Mark looks at the guys, really looks at him. “It wasn’t a football game, because you’re part of the Phoenix club and football isn’t something you are willing to participate in. What happened was some part of a hazing ritual, and if you don’t want me to go over and tell the doctor exactly what happened, you need to tell me right now what really happened.”

“We could lose our place as a club if we get hit with another hazing scandal,” the guys stutters, and Mark doesn’t care. At all.

Someone else steps in. “We were carrying someone and running over each other’s backs. It was dumb and stupid, but we were drunk off our asses, and just did it. Eduardo was on the ground, James ran over him with Matt on his back, and when he tried to get up, he couldn’t. He couldn’t feel his legs, and we thought he was kidding until he started screaming.”

Mark stops moving, because he knows Wardo, knows the face he would make in a sheer panic and could see him lying in the snow, screaming because everyone thought he was joking and he couldn’t move his legs. _Fuck._

The doctor comes out then and asks for Eduardo Saverin’s emergency contact. Mark knows Wardo’s parents are off in Brazil and reception is always spotty over there, and he says, “That’s me. I’m his roommate.”

The doctor eyes him for a moment before saying anything. “He has a previous spinal injury that was agitated in football match. If he doesn’t move, everything will be fine.” The doctor pauses for a moment. “If he moves the wrong way, he could be paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of his life.”

Mark closes his eyes for a minute, willing away all the thoughts in his head and focuses on _Wardo_. “Can I see him?” he says after a moment.

“Sure,” the doctor kindly smiles. “But only you.” He glares at the huddle of Phenoix members, who begin to clear out as soon as they hear the news that Wardo might be okay, and 

Mark hates, hates, _hates_ them, because this is their fault, but they won’t stay to make sure Eduardo is even okay, and fuck them, Eduardo doesn’t need to be in the club. He’s got Mark (and Chris and Dustin) and that’s enough friends he needs in his life.

At least Mark won’t ever hurt him like they have.

Chris and Dustin, both white, wave him on and move towards seats in the waiting room, and Mark follows the doctor through the ( _white_ , _sterile_ , _unfriendly_ ) halls, passing the beeping monitors and numerous patients that aren’t Eduardo until they reach a room labeled, _Intensive Care Unit_ and enter.

They find Eduardo lying on a bed, far too pale and far too lifeless for Mark’s liking. He isn’t smiling at Mark with his wide grin, isn’t curiously peering over the edge of Mark’s computer, and isn’t even moving. He is just lying there, with his eyes closed, faded against the sheets and the hospital gown and looks almost dead. Mark would think he was looking at a corpse if it wasn’t for the gentle rise and fall of Eduardo’s chest.

Mark stares at Eduardo, who is sleeping from the drugs, and actually medically paralyzed from the neck down in order to keep Wardo from injuring himself (at least, that’s what the doctor is saying) and thinks he hasn’t ever been so happy to see someone else breathe before in his entire life.

He stands in the doorway and stares and stares, and he can’t bring himself to walk further in. Because maybe if he does, it will all shatter like a dream, and he’ll wake up to see Wardo’s chest stop moving, and he’ll be dead.

And that’s something he just can’t deal with. He just _can’t_.

Mark, eventually, gathers enough courage to enter Eduardo’s room and takes a seat then furthest away from Eduardo, and watches as the light in the room casts shadows. Eduardo looks so thin, so tired, so sick. It makes Mark sick, and he’s glad he hasn’t eaten anything recently because he would have thrown it up right then and there.

(Though, if Wardo was better, he would chew Mark out so badly until he figured out Mark wasn’t paying attention – and that was a lie, Mark always paid attention. Maybe not _all_ his attention, but at least some of it, because Wardo was always worth his attention – and finally just gave in and started cursing Mark in Brazilian as he tried to make some sort of pasta in the kitchen area and pull out some vegetables for a salad. But Wardo isn’t better, and it’s silent and Mark just wants to stop thinking, but he _can’t_.)

Chris and Dustin come in later, quiet in their approach. Dustin immediately goes to Eduardo’s side, and stands over him, staring. Mark wants to yell and scream and tell Dustin if he even gets too close to Eduardo, everything could disappear. But that is irrational, and Mark has never been accused of being anything else than a realist.

Chris, however, slips into the chair at his side. He sets a bag at Mark’s feet with a quiet thud, but doesn’t look away from Eduardo.

They all stay there, in some sort of silent horror, until Dustin finally says, “Will he wake up if Mark kisses him? Like some Disney princess tale?”

“Shut up,” Chris hisses. 

The silence descends again. Everyone staring at Eduardo, and Mark can only guess at what Chris and Dustin are thinking about, but all he can think about if Wardo being in a wheelchair, and _how the fuck are they going to get a wheelchair up the stairs in Kirkland?_

Finally, Dustin looks at him, oddly serious. “He’ll be okay, right?”

Chris turns to look at him, too, and Mark wants to ask why they are all looking at him, why should he be the one with all the answers, and finally just states, “Of course he’ll be okay. He’s Wardo.”

Dustin grins, a shadow of its former self, but it’s still a smile. Chris, however, stares at Mark a minute longer before nodding. “Of course,” he repeats quietly. “Of course.”

He pauses, hitting the plastic of Mark’s chair before saying, “I’m going to take Dustin back. Will you be okay here?”

Mark nods absently, watching Eduardo (because Eduardo is always worth his attention, especially now). Chris continues, “I brought you some paper, since you aren’t allowed electronics in here. You can write some code, and Dustin and I can type it up later. We’ll be back after class.”

“What code?” Mark asks, puzzled.

And Chris steps into his line of sight. His brow his wrinkled and he looks worried, but Mark doesn’t understand why. “The Facebook,” his roommate returns.   
_Oh_ , Mark thinks as he remembers. The Facebook. And the streams of lines of code he needs to write down, needs to type before he forgets them stream into his head again, and Mark’s hands itch to write it down, but he’s reluctant to look away from the small glimpse he has of Eduardo. Because if he looks away, Eduardo might not be there when he looks back again.

“Are you okay, Mark?” Chris questions, placing a hand on Mark’s shoulder.

Mark nods, peering around Chris at Eduardo, watching him breathe in and out, in and out, like an infinite loop. Mark’s never liked infinite loops, because they don’t allow programs to compile, and you can never truly get rid of them until you reverse your own stupid error.

Infinite loops are always because you forgot something. They are always the user’s fault. 

“Mark,” Chris shakes him. “Should I take you home too?”

“No,” Mark retorts, immediately. “No, I need to be here.” He doesn’t say, _with Eduardo_ but he knows everyone in the room is thinking it.

Chris rocks back on his heels and mutters, “okay”, before grabbing Dustin’s arm and gently leading him from the room and down the hall.

Mark doesn’t watch them, however. He watches Eduardo, thinking about infinite loops, attention, and how he never really has the right words when it comes to Wardo. He never has.

 

He moves around in the chair, but never leaves the room. The nurses hand him a pillow and a blanket, and Mark uses them to make the hard plastic more comfortable and to combat the chilly temperature, but he doesn’t sleep. He just watches Wardo.

He stays that way until early morning, and the infinite loop of Wardo’s breathing changing. 

Carefully, Eduardo’s head shifts and almost silently sighs as he begins to wake up. Mark holds his breath until Wardo’s eyes open, and he stares at the ceiling for a while, a goofy grin on his face.

Mark shifts, and the chair groans beneath him. However, Eduardo’s head shoots up, and he sees Mark instantly. He doesn’t know if he should call for a nurse, huddle into his ball of blankets or what. He just sits there watching Eduardo, as he grins wildly at Mark.

If he was better at reassuring, better at emotions, he would say something. He would say, _You’ll be okay_ or _it’s temporary_ or maybe even, _I’m here, Wardo. I’m here for you_ , but he isn’t, so he says nothing, and struggles to keep his face from crumpling in relief that Wardo was awake.

The lighthearted joy in Wardo’s face dims as he takes in Mark’s expression and even Mark can feel the panic climbing up his own throat, as Wardo looks down at his limbs in horror and the heart rate machine begins to climb.

“Wardo,” Mark croaks and tries to find his words, but he can’t. The beeping gets louder and louder, and somehow, he can’t move. Eduardo starts breathing in heavily, mouthing words, but unable to get them out. He looks like he wants to scream, but doesn’t. He just stares at Mark, begging him to say something to him, to tell him it’ll be okay.

But Mark’s never been good with emotions, ever. 

He curls his fingers around the plastic of his chair and gazes at Eduardo helplessly as nurses stampede into the room, and one easily pushes a needle into Wardo’s IV. Mark should say something, tell them not to do it, but his tongue is glued to the roof of his mouth.

Eduardo stiffens and slowly eases back onto the bed, staring blankly at Mark as the drugs hit his system, slowing his system until he blinks sluggishly and falls back asleep. The nurses exit quietly, and Mark sits there watching, because apparently, that is all he can do, watch as Eduardo falls to pieces before him, because he is a shit friend.

So finally, he digs into the bag, and pulls out the paper and pencils and writes code. He writes about how he could have reacted, various parameters that contain case statements for every reaction he could (and can) have, and scribbles the reaction he should have. He writes emotions as code, because he understands code, because he’s good at code. And maybe this way, he could be better at emotions.

And maybe, if he has written descriptions of what he should be doing, Mark will actually do it. He could open his mouth and calm Wardo down when he wakes up the next time. 

He could explain everything and call the doctor down, and that he could take Wardo back to the dorm and let him heal there, instead of in this room, where all Mark can see is horribly bad things.

Because hospital’s make his skin crawl, make him see his grandmother taking her last breath after the pneumonia finally got to be too much for her, his cousin’s wife of ten hours, deflated and organ-less, after she died en-route to their honeymoon, and his aunt’s pale features, fighting against the cancer for the third time. 

He sits in this room and sees death. He sees Eduardo’s death, and it frightens him more than anything has ever scared him before. Because Mark...Mark cannot see a world where Eduardo isn’t making him eat dinner, get some sleep and attend class every once in a while. And he doesn’t _want_ a world without his best friend, his only true friend. While Chris and Dustin are his friends, they were his roommates first. They have to like each other, but Eduardo came up to him, grinning as he introduced himself with an extended hand. Eduardo was the first person to want to be his friend. To be Mark Zuckerburg’s friend.

And Mark doesn’t want to lose his first real friend.

So while Eduardo dreams, Mark begins to work up the courage to finally open his mouth and say, “I’m here, Wardo. I’m here.” Because friends do things like that. Best friends do things like that.

And, apparently, Mark is a really shitty best friend.


End file.
